Dog suffers gunshot wound in neighborhood

Steamboat Springs  As a family's pet attempts to recover from a gunshot wound to the head, a Steamboat Springs mother of two has one question for the person who shot the animal: Why?"Whoever did this I would really like to find them and have them explain to my kids why they did this," said Chris Sachs, whose dog Bear was shot Wednesday night.Bear, a husky mix, underwent about two hours of surgery at the Mount Werner Veterinary Hospital after he was shot in the head Wednesday evening.Sachs, who lives on Huckleberry Lane, reported the shooting to Steamboat Springs police after noticing the dog was hurt about 8 p.m."At first I thought he had been bit," Sachs said. "But then my daughter told me he was bleeding all over the place."Sachs immediately took Bear to the veterinary hospital."The vet thought that maybe he had been hit by a car," she said. "But when the vet took a closer look, he found the wound full of lead."Sachs believes Bear was shot in the head with a shotgun from close range near her home."The wound was fresh," she said. "I can't believe someone is shooting off a shotgun in a residential neighborhood. It is sick. With the injury he suffered he could not have been too far to make it home."The bullet entered Bear's chin and exited through one of his shoulders, she said."The bullet did not pierce his skull or spinal cord," she said. "It mostly went through flesh. It left a pretty big hole."Bear was shot after he and another family pet, Luna, a Siberian husky, were let out of the Sachs' home accidentally Wednesday afternoon.As of Thursday evening, Luna was still missing."We were having some work done in the backyard when the dogs got out," she said.Sachs spent Thursday talking to neighbors to find out if anyone heard anything or might have seen the two pets."So far, nobody remembers seeing them (Wednesday)," she said.Sachs is hopeful Luna, who has one blue eye and one brown eye, will come home and Bear will recover."Bear is so sweet and submissive," she said. "He is a great dog."Close to 2 years old now, Bear had to be fed by hand when he was a puppy."Bear's mother died when he was2 days old," Sachs said. "My two daughters would feed him with a bottle. He is great. I hope he makes it."Sachs has been unable to tell her two daughters, ages 9 and 7, what happened to Bear."He might have some damage and problems with his balance, but right now it is hard to tell," Sachs said.The neighborhood off Fish Creek Falls Road has been an area where shooting of pets has occurred before. This past summer, one cat was shot with a pellet gun and two others disappeared.